


In Quantity

by Aris



Category: Bright Eyes (Band)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Anorexia, Bulimia, Drug Abuse, Drugs, Eating Disorder, Other, conor-centric, very sad conor thinking about his name a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-06
Updated: 2013-11-05
Packaged: 2017-12-14 04:13:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/832599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aris/pseuds/Aris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Conor thinks. A lot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sweet young skin

**Author's Note:**

> Based off of songs kind of mixed together, not meant to be an accurate representation of Conor at all.

'Conor Oberst'

and it's something you've heard a thousand times, god, probably more, but it has as little meaning as the branch you snapped last week. Conor Oberst. It's what they call you when you're not 'useless waste of space', when you're not 'alcoholic', not 'anorexic'. It's what your parents named you and it could mean less to you.

Yet it's all the people seem to whisper as you pass through the back entrance, it's all people want you to write and it's all people will address you as. Conor Oberst, the singer, the writer, the stupid washed up man with a guitar and a trembling voice. The kids in school said 'you'd never make it' and you agreed.

You never did.

Make it, that is.

Because it's just standard after standard with you. It's - it's like having a BMI of 17 wasn't enough. How 16.5 wasn't, how 16 wasn't, how 15.5 seems so far ahead and how you know when you reach it, if you reach it, it'll never be enough.

Nothing ever is.

"Conor! Conor!" and the girl is pretty and pale and you force a smile and a lazy drawl and you sign her poster and you wave to her friends and, with your arm around her bony little shoulder you feel gravity crush around you with a flash of a camera and you know tomorrow it'll be somewhere up on the internet.

_'Hasn't he put on so much weight?'_

_'Is that Conor Oberst?'_

and there'll be critic after critic and really; they're your best friends. You've been one all your life. The weight critic. The voice critic. The writing critic. The drinking critic. It goes on and on and on and you'd have low self esteem if you weren't the most arrogant person you know. You'd have low self esteem if you didn't think you were so sickeningly unique, so _special_.

You wish Mum had drowned you in that claw foot bathtub. Wish it hasn't been Padraic. Wish you'd turned blue enough to match your mind, skin pale enough to fade out into the white porcelain. _Padraic my prince_ and even dead, he was better than you. Even now you can't resist his lifeless allure and even dead Mum said his name more times than yours. That meaningless, ordinary name.

The bath in your hotel room has gold handles. You can almost feel them under your hands.


	2. Chapter 2

It makes you feel sick so many people can relate.

You're buzzed out on the kitchen floor trying not to hear the ringing of the telephone and you feel so fucking sick knowing there's a boy out there just sitting in his room, like you used to, listening to you. Listening to your timid voice and your fucked up words and thinking _'yes'_. There's nails on the inside of your throat and a clawing sensation when you see art work with your life painted over it. That yellow bird. The bathtub. Those flowers...

Fucking sick and your brother would listen every night through the thinthin walls. His fragile fingers when the sun came up made you cry and strike another cord and he'd push forward breakfast; like it's what you needed. Wanted. Your fingers bled on the white plate and you looked up and watched his face crack.

Except you're not sure that ever happened because you look up at your brother now and you can't see him. You're not sure because you wrote it all down before you could forget but it might have been a dream. Words are all you have; though you'd never pass on Jack if it came round and something about the curve on those tablets sent your hunger searching. There's a burn at the back of your throat.

And she was so lovely except when she cried (it could have been the other way round; something about July) and she had the softest skin and the faintest breath and you hitched a ride out of town before she could die in your arms. The girls with the soft skin always do that. You drew a deer on your skin to remember her, the pen was red, you think.

"Conor. Conor. I know you're listening."

Heavy breathing, heavy breathes and it's so much harder to ignore that sound. It's been following you around everyday of your life and you can't cut it out; even a butchers knife couldn't do it.

"...Conor I need you to call me back. Pick up the phone. Do something. I need to know you're not just lying there, Conor."

"Conor Oberst."

there's that name again.


	3. Chapter 3

You drew yourself with a curve to your ribcage and it feels a lot like the dreams you haven't been having. The ones brought on by pink powders and blue drinks, the mixing purple that gets further and further... the dreams with a smile and blacked out eyeliner than wanders after your soul. After that spark in your eyes - the one that died down so long ago. It crackles like embers when there's a bottle down your throat, a blade to your veins, a finger down your throat. But. But there's isn't a curve to your ribcage and when you try to smile, on the floor, soaked in tears, it feels like the shifting of tectonic plates. 

It's that _'you could write that'_ but you don't. You can't. It's wretched and sickening and every single word your teachers ever told you was wrong - the teacher that gave you a red A in ink that dripped, when you brushed it, in such a familiar way it's all you can do not to reach for the kitchen. The empty kitchen with it's empty fridge and its empty covers and the plates - the 2am plates with

_I've been eating for you_

scrawled in black pen, smudged red, glistening tears. You'd wear it, if you could. Tears. Flowing and beautiful and so enriched that you lick your lips, once, again, all dry skin and parched throat and tobacco. What a fashion statement. What a - well. You'd have to cry a lot, to cover your form, to hide your existence. More than your blue eyed brother and your blue skinned younger and more than your mother, the dead one, who never called. Not really. She was a funeral in black, in white, in the velvet red of a coffin she'd never have been able to afford. You sang your soul out for that coffin, and now you're corpse eyes that never got buried. Won't be put to rest, can't settle until there isn't a girl somewhere writing 'yellow bird' or a boy with a ratty guitar in second hand clothes staring lovingly from his attic window at the bombshell who never looks up from the ground.

You want your words to die before you, but there's a desperation to the tip of a bottle that just has your fingers itching for something less. Something painless. You think _'I'll be 55 and dead on the inside'_ and you won't make it, never make it. Just like they said. There's something, on the inside of a pale thigh, and it says _'maybe this time it's different'_ , but you know the truth and it's like the burn in your eyes and the burn in your throat and the burn in your lungs when you forget to breathe, again. You're just some kid who got lost with a guitar and a notebook full of heart, borrowed love and fakes lives. You're a dead end alcoholic, anorexic - the kid in the corner (' _who's he?_ ') who couldn't force down a slice of toast but can't keep his mouth closed to sin.

It's school all over again but the spiky haired blondes with the smiles are business men with tight lips and those kids, glossy eyed and oh-so-unhappy, are dead and gone and you wish you could have gone with them. Wish you didn't have to ~~not~~ make it.

 

And when it comes down to it all, you'll never outlive Conor Oberst.


End file.
